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leads us by a very sure and direct path to the true theory of marriage.

"Different as the two sexes are by nature, and increased as that difference is by the diversity which happily exists in their social position, each is consequently necessary to the moral development of the other. In practical energy and in the mental capacity connected with it, man is evidently superior to woman. Woman's strength, on the other hand, lies in feeling. She excels man in love, as man excels her in all kinds of force. It is impossible to conceive of a closer union than that which binds these two beings to the mutual service and perfection of each other, saving them from all danger of rivalry. The voluntary character, too, of this union gives it a still further charm when the choice has been on both sides a happy one. In the Positive theory, then, of marriage, its principal object is considered to be that of completing and confirming the education of the heart by calling out the purest and strongest of human sympathies.”

The Princess, more than any other of Tennyson's longer poems with the possible exception of In Memoriam, is dependent on explanatory notes for its proper appreciation and enjoyment, and especially is this true in the case of children; the themes which are its subject are beyond their experience and, to a large degree, their interest, its structure is intricate and unusual, and its beauty as poetry lies largely, as it were, under the surface; but its value as a field for study rather lies in these characteristics than exists in spite of them.

The notes of the present edition have been rigidly subjected to the test of the question, "Is the pupil likely to find this out for himself?" and it is believed that they contain nothing which will not be a distinct help in the understanding and enjoyment of the poem. On the other hand, more has been sought for than the mere ability to pass an examination on the subject-matter of the poem, and an attempt has been made to help the student to an appreciation of the more distinctively artistic features of Tennyson's work as such.

In preparing the present edition constant use has been made of the notes to the edition of Professor Wallace of the Anglo-Indian College, Aligarh (Macmillan).

August 16, 1897

CRITICAL OPINIONS

"The Princess, as we now possess it, is the outcome of careful and sustained effort on the poet's part, the offspring of his mature powers, polished and refined through several editions, and may thus be fairly regarded as a work upon which its author has bestowed the utmost of his critical after-thought as well as creative power. And when we consider with what marked success Tennyson has throughout his career maintained the high standard of excell nce that he early trained us to expect from his pen, whether we look for healthiness and sobriety of thought, artistic treatment of materials, or splendor and grace of language, this poem will appear worthy in an especial degree of our earnest and reverent study, with respect both to his handling of the various problems and points at issue in the main theme of the story, and to the manner and form of their presentation."-P. M. WALLACE.

"To describe his command of language by any ordinary terms expressive of fluency or force would be to convey an idea both inadequate and erroneous. It is not only that he knows every word in the language suited to express his every idea; he can select with the ease of magic the word that above all others is best for his purpose; nor is it that he can at once summon to his aid the best word the language affords; with an art which Shakespeare never scrupled to apply, though in our day it is apt to be counted mere Germanism, and pronounced contrary to the genius of the language, he combines old words into new epithets, he daringly mingles all colors to bring out tints that never were on sea or shore. His words gleam like pearls and opals, like rubies and emeralds. He yokes the stern vocables of the English tongue to the chariot of his imagination, and they become gracefully brilliant as the leopards of Bacchus, soft and glowing as the Cytherean doves. He must have been born with an ear for verbal

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sounds, an instinctive appreciation of the beautiful and delicate in words, hardly ever equaled. Though his later works speak less of the blossom-time-show less of the efflorescence and iridescence and mere glance and gleam of colored words-they display no falling off, but rather an advance, in the mightier elements of rhythmic speech."-PETER Bayne.

verse,

"Not often has a lovelier story been recited. After the idyllic introduction, the body of the poem is composed in a semi-heroic Other works of our poet are greater, but none is so fascinating as this romantic tale : English throughout, yet combining the England of Coeur de Leon with that of Victoria in one bewitching picture. Some of the author's most delicately musical lines-jewels five words long'-are herein contained, and the ending of each canto is an effective piece of art.

“Few will deny that, taken together, these [songs] constitute the finest group of songs produced in our century; and the third, known as the 'Bugle Song,' seems to many the most perfect English lyric since the time of Shakespeare. In The Princess we also find Tennyson's most successful studies upon the model of the Theocritan isometric verse. He was the first to enrich our poetry with this class of melodies, for the burlesque pastorals of the eighteenth century need not be considered. Not one of the blank-verse songs in his Arthurian epic equals in structure or feeling the Tears, idle tears,' and 'O swallow, swallow, flying, flying south.'"- Victorian Poets: E. C. STEDMAN.

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One hardly knows how to take the poet.

At one moment he is very much in earnest; the next moment he seems to be making fun of the woman's college. The style is like a breeze that blows northwest by southeast; it may be a very lively breeze, and full of sweet odors from every quarter; but the trouble is that we cannot tell which way to trim our sails to catch the force of it, and so our craft goes jibing to and fro, without making progress in any direction.

"I think we feel this uncertainty most of all in the characters of the Princess and the Prince,-and I name the Princess first because she is evidently the hero of the poem. Sometimes she appears to be very admirable and lovable, in a stately kind of beauty; but again she seems like a woman from whom a man with ordinary prudence and a proper regard for his own sense of

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CRITICAL OPINIONS

humor would promptly and carefully flee away, appreciating the truth of the description which her father, King Gama, gives of her:

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666 'Awful odes she wrote,

Too awful sure for what they treated of,

But all she says and does is awful.'

There is a touch of her own style, it seems to me, here and there in the poem. The epithets are somewhat too numerous and too stately. The art is decidedly arabesque; there is a surplus of ornament; and here, more than anywhere else, one finds it difficult to defend Tennyson from the charge of over-elaboration."

-The Poetry of Tennyson: HENRY VAN DYKE.

"The poem of The Princess, as a work of art, is the most com. plete and satisfying of all Tennyson's works. It possesses a play of fancy, of humor, of pathos, and of passion which give it variety; while the feeling of unity is unbroken throughout. It is full of passages of the rarest beauty and most exquisite workmanship. The songs it contains are unsurpassed in English literature. The diction is drawn from the treasure-house of old English poetry—from Chaucer, from Shakespeare, and the poets of the Elizabethan age. The versification is remarkable for its variety; while the rhythm, in stateliness and expression, is modelled upon Milton. There are passages which, in power over language to match sound with sense, are not excelled by anything in Paradise Lost for strength, or in Milton's minor poems for sweetness.

-Study of the Princess: S. E. DAWSON.

THE PRINCESS

A MEDLEY

PROLOGUE

SIR WALTER VIVIAN all a summer's day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to the people thither flocked at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half
The neighboring borough with their Institute
Of which he was the patron. I was there
From college, visiting the son,-the son
A Walter too,-with others of our set,
Five others we were seven at Vivian-place.

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And me that morning Walter show'd the house, 10 Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall

The purpose of the prologue is to provide a setting for the tale and to give it an atmosphere. The description of the fête with the implied changing conditions and methods in education serves as a prelude to the central thought of the poem proper. With this is contrasted the quiet group of story-tellers.

2. lawns, broad meadows.

5. Institute, an educational and social institution established in the interests of the working classes.

11. Greek, of Grecian architecture.

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